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Over five weeks, the FTX founder's parents watched from the galleys - deluded, humiliated, and finally defeated. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is removing the free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for most of its 238,000 employees and some aren't happy about it. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the company started informing employees this week that in January 2024 the free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for permanent Microsoft employees will no longer be available.I understand that Xbox employees will continue to keep the benefit, but the vast majority of Microsoft employees who aren't part of Xbox / Microsoft Gaming will see the benefit disappear next year. Microsoft employees will be able to purchase a discounted 12-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Subscription at the company's internal store.Some Microsoft employees have taken to the... Continue reading...

Photo by Steve Jennings / Getty Images for TechCrunch Another big esports brand is making some major changes. 100 Thieves, which already announced layoffs in January, is laying off more staff and spinning out its internal game development studio and its Juvee energy drink, 100 Thieves president and COO John Robinson said in a Thursday thread on X (formerly Twitter). The cuts impact roughly 20 percent of the company's employees and primarily affect Juvee and the game development studio, Robinson tells The Verge. (Robinson wouldn't confirm a specific number of employees affected.)100 Thieves was founded in 2017 by Call of Duty star Matt Nadeshot" Haag and quickly became known for blending gaming and apparel to become something like the Supreme of esports. (Drake and Scooter Braun are... Continue reading...

Photo by Jerod Harris / Getty Images for Vox Media During today's presentation about HBO's slate of upcoming projects, CEO / chair Casey Bloys could have tried denying recent reports that he and fellow executive Kathleen McCaffrey concocted a scheme to target and harass critics who wrote negative things about some of the network's recently released series in the early days of the pandemic. Instead, though, Bloys owned up to the allegations of his trying to build a secret army" of Twitter trolls, apologized, and insisted that he isn't the kind of person who would do that sort of thing now.On Wednesday, Rolling Stone published a rather wild report detailing how, for almost a year between June 2020 and April 2021, Bloys and McCaffrey discussed using what they called a secret army' to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is closing its two Amazon Style clothing stores by next week, according to Bloomberg, marking the company's latest big change to its retail strategy. The company announced in March 2022 that it would be shutting down most of its physical stores, including all 68 of its Books, 4-Star, and Pop Up locations. And this past March, it said it would be closing eight of its Go convenience stores.The Style clothing stores didn't even make it two years. Amazon opened its first Style location in Los Angeles, California, in May 2022, promising that the store would offer customers a personalized and convenient shopping experience while creating local jobs." A second location in Columbus, Ohio, opened in October 2022.After careful... Continue reading...

Image: Hulu More Futurama is headed to Hulu. The streamer has ordered two additional seasons of the quirky sci-fi series, each consisting of 10 episodes.That's on top of the 20 Futurama episodes Hulu ordered last year, half of which debuted as part of the reboot's 11th season in July. The streamer says it will drop the remaining 10 episodes with a season 12 that's expected to arrive in 2024.

Illustration: The Verge When HBO Max transformed into Max back in May, Warner Bros. Discovery said that existing subscribers on the ad-free plan would be able to hang onto certain perks (like 4K streaming) for at least the next six months without needing to spend more money. Well, we're about to hit that six-month mark, and right on cue, the party's over. That's all, folks.Max is emailing affected customers, letting them know that while their monthly price of $15.99 will remain the same moving forward, they'll be losing a couple of perks on or after December 5th.Specifically, 4K (and HDR) streaming will be removed for legacy customers; they'll now be limited to HD quality, just like anyone signing up for Max's ad-free tier today would be. If they want to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon's secret pricing algorithm, codenamed Project Nessie," may have generated the company more than $1 billion in extra profits, according to new details released Thursday from the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case against the e-commerce giant.In September, the FTC and more than a dozen state attorneys general sued Amazon, claiming that the company operates an illegal monopoly. Among other claims, the complaint says that Amazon buried listings offered at lower prices from other retailers and charged sellers steep fees in order to inflate product prices.The existence of Project Nessie was first revealed in a previously redacted version of the complaint. Nessie was allegedly an algorithm that would increase the price of... Continue reading...

Image: HBO We might be waiting a while for more of HBO's The Last of Us. HBO announced in January that a second season of the excellent adaptation was in the works, and on Thursday, HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys said that the season will enter production in early 2024, according to Variety.Bloys said that production was delayed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (the latter of which is still going on). The show also wasn't on HBO's slate for 2024, Variety says, meaning it might not come out until 2025 at the earliest.That said, there has already been some preparation done for the new season. We've outlined all of season 2 and we're ready to go as soon as the strike ends," show co-creator Neil Druckmann told Entertainment Weekly in... Continue reading...

Toho In the months before The Boy and The Heron's Japanese debut, Studio Ghibli made a point of keeping details about the latest animated feature from Hayao Miyazaki to a minimum. For those who've been trying to avoid spoilers, it's definitely gotten trickier what with all the buzz coming from its run on the film festival circuit. But as much as you might expect the trailer for GKids' English dub to give away, it's a surprisingly restrained and tantalizing look at just what has everyone so worked up.It's difficult to parse where and when The Boy and the Heron's young protagonist Mahito (Luca Padovan) is in the movie's new trailer, but it is clear that all of the odd and inexplicable occurrences around him have something to do with a strange... Continue reading...

The Leather Folio Plus for the iPad Air and iPad Pro has an extra flap to keep the Apple Pencil secure. | Photo: Nomad Goods Though Apple has ditched leather across its product lineups, third-party accessory makers are carrying on full steam ahead. Nomad's latest cases for the iPad Air and iPad Pro, the Leather Folio and Leather Folio Plus, have a similar design and features as Apple's Smart Folio cases but with a leather finish.The Leather Folio cases attach to the back of the iPad with magnets and provide a sleeker profile than the company's other iPad cases. They automatically wake and sleep the iPad when opened and closed, and the front cover can be folded back to use as a stand in landscape orientation, just like Apple's cases. Inside is a microfiber finish to keep the screen protected.The Plus model, which costs $10 more than the standard Leather... Continue reading...

The base version of Brave Leo is built on Meta's Llama 2 AI model and is free for all desktop users. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Brave, the privacy-focused browser that automatically blocks unwanted ads and trackers, is rolling out Leo - a native AI assistant that the company claims provides unparalleled privacy" compared to some other AI chatbot services. Following several months of testing, Leo is now available to use for free by all Brave desktop users running version 1.60 of the web browser. Leo is rolling out in phases over the next few days" and will be available on Android and iOS in the coming months."The core features of Leo aren't too dissimilar from other AI chatbots like Bing Chat and Google Bard: it can translate, answer questions, summarize webpages, and generate new content. Brave says the benefits of Leo over those offerings are that it aligns... Continue reading...

20th Century Studios Things aren't looking so good for humanity in the first teaser trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The fourth movie in the modern version of the franchise, Kingdom takes place several generations after the last film - 2017's War for the Planet of the Apes - when a new leader has taken charge of the apes as they assert themselves as the dominant force on the planet. That leaves little room for humans, of course, who spend most of the trailer either cowering or running.Here's the official description:

Image: The Verge If you don't like the idea of your Threads posts popping up on other users' Instagram and Facebook feeds, Meta may soon add a way to stop this. As spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, Threads appears to be working on a new privacy setting, titled Suggesting posts on other apps."From what it looks like, the setting will let you prevent Threads from recommending your posts on Instagram, Facebook, or both. Currently, Meta may suggest your Threads posts to other users on either platform if you have a public profile, which is why you might have noticed carousels of Threads posts sandwiched within your Facebook and Instagram feeds lately.

Image: 11 Bit Studios For a while there, first-person exploration games - otherwise known as walking simulators - were all the rage. There were titles like Gone Home, Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture that were basically FPS games without the guns, allowing players to explore spaces from a first-person viewpoint, uncovering a story as they went. For whatever reason, the genre has been relatively quiet of late. But now, it's back in a big way with The Invincible, a quiet, desolate trip to an eerie alien planet that starts strong and never really lets up.Based on the novel of the same name by Polish author Stanisaw Lem and developed by Starward Industries, The Invincible puts you in the role of Yasna, an... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has had a rough few years of cybersecurity incidents. It found itself at the center of the SolarWinds attack nearly three years ago, one of the most sophisticated cybersecurity attacks we've ever seen. Then, 30,000 organizations' email servers were hacked in 2021 thanks to a Microsoft Exchange Server flaw. If that weren't enough already, Chinese hackers breached US government emails via a Microsoft cloud exploit earlier this year.Something had to give.Microsoft is now announcing a huge cybersecurity effort, dubbed the Secure Future Initiative (SFI). This new approach is designed to change the way Microsoft designs, builds, tests, and operates its software and services. It's the biggest change to security efforts inside... Continue reading...

Image: Mint Mint, the budgeting app owned by Intuit, is shutting down. Intuit announced on Tuesday that Mint will get absorbed into Intuit's other service, Credit Karma, when it officially goes away on January 1st, 2024 (via Bloomberg). But it's still not clear whether Credit Karma will get the budgeting features that Mint is known for.Intuit first acquired Mint in 2009, an app that has offered a free way for users to track their budgets, manage expenses, negotiate bills, and keep tabs on subscriptions. Now, Intuit is inviting users to Credit Karma, a service that the company acquired in 2020.While Credit Karma offers similar features, like credit score checks, information on how to build credit, and credit monitoring, it still doesn't come with... Continue reading...

It's hard to not dig the Elite Series 2's stealthy looks if you're into all-black hardware. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Microsoft's Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 is a very cool controller for those who want to game on an Xbox or PC with something a little fancier and a whole lot more premium than standard gamepads, and it's now dropped to a new low price. You can pick up an Elite Series 2 for $122.49 (around $58 off) at Walmart or $122.99 direct from Microsoft. That's the kind of price the cheaper Elite Series 2 Core sells for, but the standard Elite 2 in black comes with all the included extras: a protective zip-up case with passthrough USB-C charging, four removable rear paddle buttons, and swappable D-pad and stick toppers.While the Elite Series 2 has had some shortcomings when it comes to reliability (which Microsoft has tried to address by e... Continue reading...

Image: KIUC Redwood Materials has recycled e-bike batteries and Tesla batteries. Now, it's ready to go up a few sizes.The electric vehicle battery recycling and manufacturing venture founded by the former chief technologist of Tesla announced today that it will help decommission and recycle a 4MWh stationary storage substation in Kauai, Hawaii, as part of a massive solar array.It will be Redwood's first battery energy storage system and an important step in the company's broader effort to prove that lithium-ion batteries and energy storage products of all sizes can have a new life beyond their current ones.For JB Straubel, former Tesla CTO and founder of Redwood, it's a project that has come full circle. Straubel was involved in the initial... Continue reading...

Testing the HTC Vive Focus 3 during a European Space Agency parabolic flight. | Image: Novespace HTC is going to space. The company announced today that on a planned November 7th NASA resupply launch, a tweaked, microgravity-friendly version of its Vive Focus 3 VR headset will be sent to the International Space Station. Once it's there, Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen will test the Focus 3's viability for helping alleviate the mental stress that NASA says comes from the lack of privacy, high and variable workloads, and separation from loved ones" inherent to work in space.HTC partnered with a virtual reality therapy company called XRHealth to work on a virtual assistance mental balance initiative" by aeronautics R&D company Nord-Space ApS to try to meet astronauts' unique needs. HTC believes its tweaked headset Vive Focus 3... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Starting November 2nd, YouTube will impose restrictions on how often teens receive repeated video recommendations related to sensitive topics like body image, the company announced on Thursday.YouTube says the new safeguards are the result of its partnership with the Youth and Families Advisory Committee, which consists of psychologists, researchers, and other experts in child development, children's media, and digital learning. For years, the committee has advised YouTube on the potentially harmful mental health effects repeated exposure to certain content online can have on teenagers.A higher frequency of content that idealizes unhealthy standards or behaviors can emphasize potentially problematic messages-and those messages can... Continue reading...

Bitwarden has added support for the more secure passkey login method. | Image: Bitwarden Bitwarden, one of our top picks for free password managers, is adding support for passkeys in the latest version of its browser extensions. Passkeys can use your device's pin, face, or fingerprint for authentication, and are a more secure and convenient alternative to traditional passwords that are also more resilient to phishing attacks.Although the company has announced that passkey support is coming in the new 2023.10 release, the update appears to be in the process of rolling out - I'm still seeing the previous 2023.9.2 version listed on the Chrome Web Store as of this writing. But I've verified that it's working on Safari with the latest version of Bitwarden's Mac app and extension. The rollout of the feature follows support from A... Continue reading...

Photo by Arturo Holmes/WireImage Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her name and likeness in an online ad, according to a report from Variety. The ad was for an AI image editor, called Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar, and featured an AI-generated version of Johansson's voice.As reported by Variety, the 22-second ad showed Johansson behind the scenes while filming Black Widow, where she actually says What's up guys? It's Scarlett and I want you to come with me." But then, the ad transitions away from Johansson, while an AI-generated voice meant to sound like the actress states: It's not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn't miss it."At the very bottom... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney is buying up Comcast's stake in Hulu. The entertainment giant announced Wednesday that it expects it will pay" $8.61 billion to acquire Comcast's 33 percent stake, giving Disney full ownership of Hulu.But Disney might end up paying more than that. Both Disney and Comcast agreed to an appraisal process that will evaluate Hulu's equity fair value as of September 30th. If Comcast's stake is determined to be greater than the guaranteed floor value," Disney will have to pay Comcast the difference.Disney says the timing of the appraisal process is uncertain," but it expects it to be completed sometime next year. This all stems from the deal Disney made with Comcast to buy its one-third stake in Hulu in 2019. The deal was initially... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Apple no longer offers its $4.99 per month Apple Music Voice Plan, as reported by MacMagazine.The Voice Plan, introduced in 2021, let you access the Apple Music library via Siri across your devices. But as of Wednesday, it's no longer listed among the Apple Music plans that you can subscribe to on Apple's website - the grid on the site currently includes the Student, Individual, and Family plans. (The Voice Plan was listed on the website as of Tuesday, according to an archived version of the page on the Wayback Machine.)If you are currently on the Voice Plan, Apple will turn off auto-renew, the company writes in a support page about the plan's discontinuation. Naturally, Apple says that you can also switch to one of its other Apple... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.For all of the changes Spotify has gone through over the past year, there is still more to come. Those three-year podcast deals the company struck are coming up for renewal, and what Spotify decides to do with them could have reverberations across the industry. The Joe Rogan Experience - the first, the biggest, and the most consequential - will expire in 2024. Today, after speaking with podcasters, producers, analysts, agents, and executives (mostly on background, though a few brave souls went on the record), I take a look at how the Spotify / Rogan relationship could play out.Let me be clear: this is purely a thought exercise. I... Continue reading...

The 2023 Subaru Solterra. | Image: Subaru Subaru is hopping on the Tesla charging port bandwagon. The automaker has announced that it will adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) for certain" electric vehicles starting in 2025.Subaru says it will also supply NACS charging adapters to customers who own or lease an EV with the Combined Charging System (CCS) standard in 2025. The company has been relatively slow to adopt EVs. It currently only offers the Solterra, and even that's only as part of its partnership with Toyota; everything else is gas-powered. Subaru plans to add to its EV lineup, though, and it has three vehicles in the works that it's supposed to reveal by 2026.The adoption of the NACS charging port has ramped up significantly after Tesla opened up the... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Apple's new entry-level Apple Pencil with a USB-C port for charging is now available to order, the company announced on Wednesday.At $79, the new Apple Pencil is the company's most affordable, and it comes with features like tilt sensitivity and the ability to attach magnetically to the side of an iPad. To charge the new Apple Pencil, you can slide the cap on the end to reveal the USB-C port.However, the lower price means this third-generation Apple Pencil doesn't have some nice features available on the company's other Apple Pencils, such as pressure sensitivity (found on both the first- and second-generation models) or the ability to pair and charge wirelessly when magnetically attached to an iPad (which you can do with the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you've ever used an Xbox media app and wondered why it was a little slow, clunky, or didn't have the latest features you find on the equivalent web-based version, then hopefully that will be a thing of the past soon.Microsoft is finally allowing Xbox app developers to use the Chromium-powered version of Edge to improve their apps. Support for Microsoft Edge's WebView2 on Xbox is now available, allowing Xbox media app developers to embed the latest web technologies inside Xbox apps and improve performance.Developers have been previewing this support for months, and it has been a highly requested feature, according to Microsoft. Streaming app STARZ is one of the first to utilize WebView2, but we're hoping to see others work this into... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Apple's been signaling for years that it wants to dive more deeply into healthcare. A lengthy new Bloomberg report details just how far the company wants to go, while also explaining why it just hasn't gotten there yet.Its biggest ambitions, says the article, have been slowed in part by concerns from leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams. The executives reportedly worry that slip-ups in the high-stakes field of healthcare could tarnish the perception of the company."Bloomberg's write-up has lots of previously unknown tidbits about Apple's health aims, sourced from anonymous employees. Here are the highlights:

Image: The Verge Apple must face a UK class action lawsuit that accuses the company of knowingly using defective batteries in certain iPhone models, as reported earlier by Reuters. In a ruling on Wednesday, London's Competition Appeal Tribunal denied Apple's request to block the lawsuit.Last year, Justin Gutmann filed a lawsuit against Apple that alleges the company installed batteries in the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, and 7 Plus that couldn't keep up with the device's processor or operating system. The suit accuses Apple of hiding this issue while also continuing to push automatic software updates including a power management tool that slowed down, or throttled," their processors.Apple attempted to block the lawsuit in May, calling the... Continue reading...

Product Studio, Google's AI-powered image editing tool for merchants, is rolling out in the US starting today. | Illustration: The Verge Google is introducing new Shopping features that allow merchants to quickly update product imagery using generative AI and make it easier to display important shop information to attract new customers.Starting today, Google merchants in the US can label themselves with a new small business" attribute that makes it easier for shoppers to identify mom-and-pop-style stores. Stores that carry this new attribute will be clearly labeled as a small business in Google Maps, and products sold by these merchants will feature a small business" tag in Google Search. Image: Google This should make it a little easier to support small, local businesses over large corporations. These updates only apply to US-based... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding new gestures to the OneNote Windows app to improve the text and inking experience. If you have a device with a stylus, like Microsoft's Surface tablets, you can now use more gestures to manipulate your digital handwriting. Microsoft has added the ability to strike-through text, delete it by scribbling over it, and even quickly insert a new paragraph.All of these new gestures are starting to roll out in the main OneNote desktop app, which is part of Microsoft's work to unify its OneNote and OneNote for Windows 10 apps in a single app with a variety of features for mouse and keyboard users, stylus, and touch. Image: Microsoft The improved gestures in OneNote. If you were a fan of the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Not all Google searches make Google money. Google often says that it only shows ads on about 20 percent of queries, the ones it calls commercial queries." You can probably guess what qualifies. US president in 1836" is not something you type when you're about to buy something; neither is facebook" because all you're looking for is Facebook. But if you type in best new car 2023" or cheap flights to London" there are a lot of advertisers that would like to be the first thing you see, and there's a lot of money for Google to be made in the process.This week, during the US v. Google antitrust trial, we got a rare glimpse at a closely guarded secret: which search terms make the most money. The list is only for the week of September... Continue reading...

The Verge With macOS Sonoma, Apple's Safari browser is catching up with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and other competitors by introducing profiles: separate spaces that you can set up in the app to better organize your browsing.Each profile has its own browsing history, cookies, website data, extensions, Tab Groups, bookmarks, and favorites. The idea is that you can have one profile for your job and another for personal use, for example, or different profiles for different projects you're involved in at work.In general, it means a cleaner and less cluttered browsing experience. Take bookmarks, for instance: you probably bookmark all kinds of sites for all kinds of reasons, and if you separate them out into profiles for business and leisure, they'll... Continue reading...

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's last wave of DLC will be available for download on November 9th, Nintendo has announced. Like its five previous waves, the release will add eight additional tracks to the 2017 game and also include new playable characters Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, Pauline, and Peachette. The release concludes an ambitious program of extra content for the game that's seen its total track list double from 48 to 96 tracks in total.The eight tracks are split between two cups, the Acorn Cup and the Spiny Cup. These include Mario Kart Wii's Rainbow Road and Daisy Circuit, DK Mountain from Double Dash, Rosalina's Ice World from the 3DS, Bowser Castle 3 from the SNES, and Madrid Drive, Rome Avanti, and Piranha Plant Cove from Mario Kart Tour.... Continue reading...